The Thanatos
by Gwidlet
Summary: Jeremy Cribbings just wants the ruddy Starship to get to New Earth before anyone manages to die of old age, and to be fair, he's more than a little bit close to that. But the Starship tried for New Earth and it missed, so now they're stuck aboard the Starship as it makes its 8-year-too-long maiden voyage.. until the Doctor shows up, and they spontaneously crash onto another planet.
1. Chapter 1

The year was 2153, aboard Starship Australia. Jeremy Cribbings pushed a small cart along the narrow, hexagonal hallways of the passenger bay, cursing the squeaky wheels and rusty metal that claimed to offer 'the full Earth experience'. It wasn't an Earth experience at all - that's why they were on this ruddy ship, to get away from Planet Earth. Eleven years, aboard this ship, and the only thing they'd managed to do was get _lost_... they'd had to take a round-about route to New Earth, so he'd ended up spending a decade aboard this ship as a 'peacefully productive member of the Starship Australia community', instead of the three years he'd been promised. It was only lucky that they could burn the waste he and the others produced for fuel - only lucky that _they _were in charge of transporting the floral (or, rather, fruital and foodal) goods, so they could _eat_.

With a sigh, he waved the palm of his hand over the skin-activated telepathic connector that'd been attached to his door for _security_, though he didn't imagine that anybody would want to steal anything aboard this ship. Wasn't even a good capitalist thing, going on here - too much effort, they'd said. People got what they got given and they'd like it. He could only hope the children born aboard the ship wouldn't feel too alienated in a capitalist society, once they got to the New Planet. The connector beeped once, and the door slid open to the left, collapsing into the wall because the Company was always one to preserve space. It was apparently for the passengers' "maximum comfort", but Jeremy hardly thought it was comfortable that he'd been living in a room comparable to a _cell _for the past eleven years.

Ballpoint pens had been their downfall. It wasn't the global warming issue or the 'humans can't breathe underwater as the sea level rises' issue that everybody thought it would be, it was _ballpoint pens_. He _knew _they shouldn't've taken that deal with the Sloopens, regardless of how much they seemed to like pens. But it was rather a good thing, anyway, thought Jeremy, as he tugged the cart into his room, wheels squealing loudly against the floor; fountain pens had _always _been much more attractive, and they weren't ever going back to those ruddy plastic ones, if you asked him. And nobody ever did, because he was the grumpy old man Mr Cribbings and it was rumoured between the children of the ship that he had once walked out into deep space instead of into his shower.

With a sigh, the man that felt somewhat more like a bag of old creaky bones settled himself into his bed, thinking he might read a good book before turning in, for the night. There weren't any good books aboard the ship when they'd started, but ten years was plenty of time for him to write his own, and his writing was the best, anyway. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was back on Earth, in that run-down shack in South Australia that had never brought him any good and was just a bloody nuisance of a home (that's why he didn't close his eyes).

"Bunch o' lazy kids," he mumbled to himself as his papery hands began to flick through the rather more papery book. The empty cart was left in the far corner of his room, metal and devoid of any sort of colour it might have once had, though there was maybe an identifiably red handle with some old supermarket's name printed large. Every day, he went through the ship's hallways, picking up those kids' garbage - and every day, he mumbled _bunch o' lazy kids_ to himself as he sat on his bed and sighed.

There wasn't any rubbish today.

Which was more concerning to him than he'd thought it was, so he slammed the book shut with a frustrated movement, sunken eyes searching the sky above him like he couldn't just look to the left and achieve the same effect (they were in _space_). Why did he always have to go looking for those ruddy youngsters? Didn't they have mothers? Fathers? No. In this section of the ship, there were only four children, kids that'd been here since they were babies - and their parents had died with the ballpoint pens... and yet he hadn't heard from a single child, all day.

Muttering irritatedly, he rolled off his bed, because eleven-year-olds should never be holed up in their rooms and left to their own devices.

"Kids?" his voice was weak and croaky as he leaned out of his bedroom and/or cell's door. "Kiiiiiids?" they'd never hear him over the roar of the engine only meant to last for three years, never a decade. Old Mister Jeremy Cribbings ambled out into the corridor, his movements even slower and more careful than they had been in the War (though he hadn't been trying to be all that careful, back then). Sometimes those kids really twisted his cane. They weren't ever where the were supposed to be, and today it was like they'd just _disappe-_

the _vwhoorping _of the very place his children (_not _his children, _the _children) had disappeared to interrupted his thoughts, and Jeremy spun around as quickly as was possible for a 72-year-old man with what he claimed was a bad back so he could get out of having to help anybody move Cell. Which turned out to be pretty fast, because he turned quickly enough to see the blue box materialising into thin air, the corridor's architecture hardly large enough to accomodate this - this _blue box_, with its fancy-shcmancy _writing _of the words _police box_, and its _materialisation_.

"That was super cool, Mister Doctor!" came Henry Gibson's voice, the eldest of the lot.  
"Weeeeell... might've been from afar, but it'd be a different story, if you were up close and personal - believe me, I almost burnt my eyebrows off. One day I'll manage just that, if I'm not careful... these things've mine are getting _delicate_." This was a different voice, one that Jeremy did not recognise. And Jeremy hadn't _not _recognised a voice in eleven years, so he started forward rather quickly, just as the doors to the box clicked open and the four missing children streamed out, licking _ice _popsicles. "Aaaand... here we are, back home and safe! Not an hour later, what did I tell you?" the person possessing the new voice stepped out of the blue box, hands in his pockets, casual as anything. The door clicked shut behind him, but Jeremy was hardly concerned with the innards of a bloody _police box_.

"_LESS THAN AN HOUR?" _he repeated, very much prepared to raise his cane and waggle it accusingly at the fresh-faced man with an ill-fitting pinstriped suit, "Less than an- you've been holing up my kids! All five of you jammed in a box like that, what've you been doing to them? 'Ey?"

It seemed that the man called _Mister Doctor _- who in the blazing hells named their child _Mister Doctor_? Must've been some sort of 'new generation' thing - hadn't even _noticed _Jeremy, until he'd spoken. The grin didn't drop from Mister Doctor's face, though - oh, no. Instead, both of his hands just leapt out of his trousers' pockets, launching onto Jeremy's so that he was forced into a handshake he _really _wasn't sure he wanted to give.

"And you must be Mr Jeremy Cribbings! Ohhhh, these boys've told me a lot, about you. You walked into _deep space_, really? I'm the Doctor, by the way. Good to meet you."

It wasn't very bloody good to meet _him_. Jeremy Cribbings didn't say that, though. Jeremy Cribbings raised one finger, shaking a little because that's what his appendages did these days and he couldn't stop them, and pointed it at the impossible-haired man that'd introduced himself as _the Doctor _accusingly.

"Five hours," he said, with a false calmness to his voice.

"_What_?"

"Five hours," he repeated, "and if you've done anything to those boys of mine in that _damn _blue box of yours, _Doctor_, you'll have me to answer to."

"Five hours... blimey. TARDIS must be sick, I'm sure that wasn't..." the Doctor seemed more concerned with the lapse of time than the threats that Jeremy was making, though he stopped abruptly as he spoke, mind apparently catching up with him: "...hold on, hold on. I'm being rude. Sorry- bit of a habit, been trying to cut down. Mr Cribbings, was it? Just took these boys out for an icecream and a trip, nothing dangerous. _Weeell_, giant flaming balls of gas, but we weren't anywhere _near-" _

"We had fun, Mr Cribbings!" piped up James, the smallest of the children. "I got ice-cream, I haven't ever had it before! And Mister Doctor let us see Earth's sun - the real one, the one in the Milky Way Galaxy." James had just learnt about the geographical location of the planet in the Starship's most recent class for 10-year-olds, and it showed. Jeremy grunted non-commitally.. it wasn't like the kids wouldn't know if the Doctor had done something bad to them, but they were Jeremy's _life, _now. They couldn't just go... disappearing on gallant trips into space with some mad man in a box.

"Just _who are you_?" Jeremy challenged the man, this _Doctor _who stood with his shoulders too far back to not be used to authority.

"A traveller," came the answer.

"_What _are you?"

"What d'you _mean_, what am I? What do I look like, a Sloopen?"

Jeremy could not help but notice how the answer hadn't come, this time.

* * *

_Please take the time to leave a review, if you'd like me to continue~ _


	2. Chapter 2

They had Mister _The Doctor, Just the Doctor _'round for supper. If the impossible-haired man was at all surprised by the fact they had only fruits and vegetables on the table, he didn't show it; he just tossed a pear up and down in his hand, refusing to bite into it because, quoth the lunatic, _pears are a bit rubbish, really. _ What really seemed to interest him was that he was aboard the Starship Australia; what interested Jeremywas that this Doctor had an English accent aboard a ship populated entirely with Australians, and he seemed surprised, despite the fact he would have _had _to have been on this ship for the past 11 years. There was just no technology these days that would allow the Doctor to go hopping about space like he said he did! And, really, he said he hopped around space a _lot_.

Jeremy ate his four slices of tomato and two helpings of cauliflower and beans glumly, picking at his food in an all-too-unhappy manner. The children were all for this Doctor bloke, entirely convinced he was the real deal – and he had no idea if that was the case. Old Mr Jeremy Cribbings had no experience, when it came to strangers in blue boxes that claimed to be brilliant and had the support of a bunch of ten-to-eleven year olds. So he stood up and began to clear away plates patiently, began to do the washing up at the little sink in the bathroom for the purposes of doing something the good old-fashioned way, instead of this fancy-schmancy dishwasher that cleaned your plates and painted them, too. He listened to the Doctor relate another impossible story, children hanging on his every word. And Jeremy began to amble away, intending to return to his room, because clearly the kids weren't in danger and it wasn't much like he could just kick the Doctor out of their sector just because he was suspicious.

"Mr Jeremy Cribbings!"

He was stopped in his tracks by the Doctor's loud voice calling his name. Miracle he remembered it, really, given the Doctor had spent precisely none of the evening doing so much as talking to the old man.

"Where're you headed, 'ey? Starship like this, we've got to stick together! Can't be having disorderly conduct upon the Starship Australia on her maiden voyage, what would Armstrong say?"

Jeremy vaguely remembered that Armstrong was the first man on the moon. He wondered why the 20-something-year-old Doctor was aware of that, because he would've been in his early teens when this journey began.

But now his kids had latched onto his arms and legs, pleading with him to stay. To come and listen to the Doctor's captivating stories with them, to share some of his own (though only once the Doctor had run out of them, of course). And he sighed, knowing very well he couldn't leave _now_, and turned back into the room.

Plopped himself down at the table.

Turned his weathered, somewhat unimpressed eyes onto the Doctor.

And then it happened.

In his eleven years aboard the Starship, Jeremy had never been entirely sure that they were moving, at all; there was no hint that they were. The windows were all covered up with this black-coloured filter to protect from sun (and other star) light, and aside from the initial take-off, there was no hint they were in perpetual motion at all. Until, of course, this happened. The entire ship lurched sideways suddenly – not like a car did when it was turning a corner, but like an elevator that travelled sideways: they were suddenly off course, inertia throwing everybody in the room to the right.

Most of the kids screamed. The Doctor just locked eyes with Jeremy, as if to double check that this was not the course they were meant to be taking, that this hadn't been planned – and upon discovering that it hadn't, he seemed to assume a position of authority. The Doctor was _used _to this sort of dangerous, unlikely situation – and that's probably what scared Jeremy the most, about letting his kids 'round the fellow.

"All right, all right—everybody _quiet_, we've just been bumped a little off course… hold on, I'll check where we are."

It occurred to Jeremy just then that the lights in the room had flickered and died, that the door had auto-sealed itself so they were locked inside. When in trouble, protect the cargo. And that's all they were, really. The absolute blackness of the room was suddenly interrupted by a light buzzing and a blue-tipped instrument that, surprise surprise, belonged to the Doctor; the man had somehow navigated his way seamlessly to the other side of the room and was zapping at the door, a pair of black-framed glasses settled on the bridge of his nose.

"What're you up to, 'ey? 'Ey? What've you done?" Jeremy spoke for the first time that evening, finally deciding to break his vow of silence. Annoyed as he was, knowing what was going on seemed a _tiny _bit more important. Rather than stepping forward, though, he returned to the children, squatting down to comfort them… he was somewhat pleased to find that they did crowd to him, still, when they were scared.

The Doctor hardly acknowledged Jeremy's question. He was busy working with the number pad beside the door, the telecommunicator inlaid there for service people to talk to one another. He worked urgently, poking through the wires that could very well electrocute him with as much confidence as one might poke through a bag of sweets. "I dunno what's happened. The gravitational stabilisers are still in control. _Weeeell_, they should be—nothing wrong with them, but there's something else out there, something drawing us in… something with a bigger gravitational field. _**So,**_ question is…"

The Doctor crossed to the window, the room still completely dark (how did he _do _that? It was like he'd memorized the layout… or maybe Jeremy's eyes were getting old), and peered out of it, despite the light filtration that made it near impossible to see anything, "… just what is it?"

"Something big enough to pull in the ship, it would have to be _huge_." Jeremy stated the obvious, staring up at the Doctor despite his misgivings.

"Yeahhhh… think I figured that out on my own, thanks, but keep trying. Doesn't _look _like there's anything out there." Maybe because he was staring out of a window that faced the wrong side of the ship.

"My point is, Doctor, we're being drawn toward it. Force is mass times aceler—"

The Doctor's eyes suddenly snapped to Jeremy's, like he hadn't figured that out. _Finally_. Such a know-it-all, Jeremy had wondered when he'd _ever _give—

"—we're going to crash." Oh, right.

Jeremy blinked, and the Doctor dove – to his credit, he dove to _protect them_.

"EVERYBODY GRAB SOMETHING STABLE AND HOLD ON. NOW! DO IT!"

Half the kids grabbed the Doctor. Jeremy grabbed the kids. The Doctor, fortunately, grabbed something _actually _stable.

"BRACE YOURSELVES, CHILDRE—" Jeremy was interrupted by the crash.


End file.
